Undergraduates who assist professors in STEM courses strengthen not only their peers’ learning, but also their own ability to think critically
Senior Isabella Drezek (right) is a learning assistant for the Cells & Organisms class taught by Associate Teaching Professor Lauren Crowe (left). Photo: Alonso Nichols
In many STEM classes on campus, undergraduate learning assistants act as the eyes and ears for professors to better understand the needs of the students in their classes.
These learning assistants, or LAs, are undergraduates who work with faculty members in physics, chemistry, biology, mechanical engineering, and chemical and biological engineering courses. They attend weekly preparation meetings, take a pedagogy seminar, give feedback on assignments, and help engage students in the classroom.
Isabella Drezek has been a learning assistant since first hearing about the program her sophomore year. Now a senior, she worked this fall as the lead LA for associate teaching professor Lauren Crowe’s section of Cells & Organisms, an introductory class for prospective biology majors. Drezek said she’s enjoyed helping her peers and making sure they aren’t falling through the cracks in a large lecture setting.
“Being an LA isn’t about walking around the classroom giving people correct answers,” Drezek said. “It’s about facilitating learning and being a point of guidance.”
Drezek said LAs have a different relationship with students than typical graduate teaching assistants. LAs are working with their peers—fellow undergraduate students who are in similar situations they were recently in. That closeness helps students feel less intimidated to ask questions.
Developing Learning Assistants
Crowe said she welcomes students who have a diversity of experiences to become learning assistants for her courses.
“You don’t have to have an A in order to be an LA, and in fact, several of our LAs didn’t,” Crowe said. “What I love to see is that those students who maybe didn’t get an A were inspired because the course challenged them, and they learned something about themselves as students, and they want to serve as a point of guidance for new students who might have those same struggles.”
Crowe has seen the class transform with “wonderful changes” from the addition of learning assistants.
“Having LAs has enabled us to create a much more engaging, equitable learning environment,” Crowe said. “Getting students connected with support to help them succeed, whether that be academic coaching, tutoring, or just recognition that we’re here for them. We see in our course evals and in senior surveys how much that’s made a difference in terms of people feeling like they had a space within the biology community.”
Building a Supportive Foundation
Ira Caspari-Gnann, an assistant professor of chemistry and education, helped create the learning assistant model at Tufts, and runs the Caspari Research Group, which investigates student learning in STEM classes.
“I’ve learned how much I can trust these undergraduate students,” Caspari-Gnann said. “The learning assistants really have their own support culture amongst each other. My whole class discussions really depend on the learning assistants, because they help the students revise their thinking.”
Nicolette Maggiore, a Ph.D. student in chemistry, is the instructor of record for Organic Chemistry I while Caspari-Gnann is on leave, so she is working with the LAs in the class. She has also previously taught the learning assistant pedagogy course.
“My expectations of LAs are not to be content experts,” Maggiore said. “I expect them to be experts in learning and the process of studying organic chemistry. The class really values multiple perspectives and students exploring different lines of reasoning.”
Chemistry student Peter Hitzeman, A27, first worked in Caspari-Gnann’s lab as an undergraduate researcher, interviewing learning assistants from Tufts and other universities about their experiences. The research led him to want to try his hand at being an LA, which he did for Organic Chemistry I.
The lecture has nearly 200 students, but Hitzeman works with about 15 students in each class. He’s one of eight LAs for the class, and they work in zones across Cohen Auditorium. They’re assigned to sections of the room and walk through rows intentionally left empty, so every student has the chance to get face time with the LAs.
“This allows us to form connections with the students that we are working with,” he said. “Being an LA has helped me in my own work to think about problems critically. The role also teaches you a lot about communicating your confusion.”
Attention to Students’ Needs
Natalie Germanov, A28, is a learning assistant for associate teaching professor Vesal Dini’s Introduction to Modern Physics. She took the class in spring of 2025, while she was an LA for Dini’s General Physics II class.
“I was so impressed by how she approached the course that I begged her to become a learning assistant,” Dini said. He added that Germanov helps make the class, which has 30 students, a place for open discussion.
“I really took to the group dynamic setting and getting to talk and share ideas during class, because this is why I chose Tufts, for the community here,” Germanov said.
Germanov helps Dini get a read on the reactions to learning material and make decisions on how to best facilitate discussions.
“We have to be attentive to emotion,” Dini said. “Helping students recognize the value of confusion, rather than seeing it as a negative and recognizing it as a scientific achievement.”
Germanov said being still relatively new to the class content herself, having taken it only two semesters before, helps her share a spirit of curiosity and questioning with the students in the class. “It’s great to learn along with them,” she said.
Crowe said LAs also benefit from getting to see things from the instructor’s point of view.
“You get this window into the pedagogy and the course design, and why we make the decisions we do that students may not always agree with, but maybe are what is going to support their learning the best,” she said. “I think that gives LAs a very healthy perspective as they go through in their other classes.”
Learning to listen is a skill Germanov will take with her from her time as an LA.
“One of the best parts of being an LA is bringing everybody’s ideas together and making sure that nobody’s left unheard,” Germanov said. “Because everybody has something invaluable to bring to the conversation. You can all work together to build something great out of it.”
